CLOUD ONE
Of the eight records Live Skull released throughout the 1980s, Cloud One is probably the one most often cited as the definitive LS album. This was the record that fine tuned the band's sound, transforming the polarizing power of the original No Wave into music that got under your skin and stayed there. A tightly-knit collection of songs and anti-songs years ahead of its time, Cloud One's chaos-scrambled hooks were a direct influence on the later breakthrough projects of Sonic Youth and Swans, Live Skull's co-conspirators in the so-called "noise scene" that emerged out of New York City in those years.
Cloud One captures Live Skull at a creative peak, with the band generating a profusion of arresting sounds and ideas via the most basic rock and roll vocabulary: bass, drums and two traditionally tuned guitars. The resulting record, an inexplicably seductive song cycle that filters art through the nasty mood swings of rock, was something radically new for 1986. Nearly thirty years on, Cloud One remains a transcendent musical hybrid as mysterious as it is memorable.
Reviewing Cloud One upon its 1986 release, Forced Exposure called the album "Live Skull's densest and most orgasmic disc yet," while Melody Maker UK declared, "Live Skull willfully derange and disengage conventional pop structures, harmonies and rhythms, preferring instead to exert a vice-like grip of droning guitars around the heart of the beast. It's an awesome racket."
Acclaim for the album has continued through the years, with online source shockofDAYLIGHT describing Live Skull's magnum opus as “Primo scary artnoise from the epicenter. The band's album happens to be their best and most focused. Right as you're trying to make sense of the bafflingly hot n' pre-apocalyptic cover art, you get walloped by one of the best opening tracks in rock history. I have a hunch that bands like Fugazi, Unwound, & Halcion got their entire careers from this album.”
Finally reissued after nearly three decades out of print, Cloud One is now available on limited edition vinyl and (for the first time ever) on CD, complete with a lavish booklet including extensive liner notes by founding members Tom Paine and Mark C, and eight extremely rare bonus tracks. This is the third release in Desire Records' Live Skull project, an ambitious eight-title series of reissues of the entire Live Skull catalogue, personally overseen by Mark C and Tom Paine.
LP: limited edition of 300 copies - white vinyl - 24 pages booklet with rare and unseen pics and extensive liner notes by band members Tom Paine & MarK C. Download coupon including the 8 CD bonus tracks.
CD: 8 bonus tracks. 24 pages booklet with rare and unseen pics and extensive liner notes by band members Tom Paine & MarK C.
SWINGTIME
Recorded in 1986, The Pusherman EP is the final studio record released by the original Live Skull quartet of Mark C, Tom Paine, Marnie Greenholz and James Lo. Along with Sonic Youth and Swans, Live Skull was the face of New York's post-No Wave "noise scene" during the 1980s, and the songs on The Pusherman EP are in many ways the culmination of that movement and the essence of what Live Skull was all about.
Relentlessly fierce but with an unnerving ability to insinuate themselves in your brain, the songs on The Pusherman EP further refine Live Skull's pioneering strategy of threading unlikely hooks through mystifying interference patterns that subvert traditional rock in previously unheard ways. The EP would deserve its classic status if only for its free-associating version of Pusherman (a very curious hit on college radio back in '86), a thoroughly abstracted but weirdly faithful cover that re-imagines Curtis Mayfield's original through the cracked and filthy lens of Live Skull's crumbling East Village.
Less than a year after this record's release, Live Skull would find itself in transition, eventually becoming a quintet with drummer Rich Hutchins and Thalia Zedek on vocals – but The Pusherman EP stands in the minds of many fans and critics as not just the original line-up's final testament, but possibly its finest. In his much-quoted review for The New York Times, Robert Palmer declared, "With each new record, New York's Live Skull delivers a more concentrated brand of emotional intensity, a more ferociously disciplined sonic assault. Live Skull's music – a high-wire act played for keeps, without a net – is as challenging, as spiritually corrosive, and ultimately as transcendent as Albert Ayler's mid-60's free jazz or the implacable drone-dance of the early Velvet Underground. It's one of the essential sounds of our time."
Out of print for nearly thirty years, Live Skull's Pusherman EP has now been reissued on limited edition vinyl and (for the first time ever) on CD, complete with a lavish booklet including extensive liner notes by founding members Tom Paine and Mark C, and six extremely rare bonus tracks. This is the fourth release in Desire Records' Live Skull project, an ambitious eight-title series of reissues of the entire Live Skull catalogue, personally overseen by Mark C and Tom Paine.
12": limited edition of 300 copies - clear yellow vinyl - 24 pages booklet with rare and unseen pics and extensive liner notes by band members Tom Paine & MarK C. Download coupon including the 6 CD bonus tracks.
CD: 6 bonus tracks. 24 pages booklet with rare and unseen pics and extensive liner notes by band members Tom Paine & MarK C.
Long due vinyl press of Contrepoison second EP. We have been glad and proud to debut Pierre-Marc Tremblay's electronic solo project back in 2011 with his first...Until Next Morning EP. Since then Contrepoison has shared an ace split with Vatican Shadow and put out a couple of tape releases on his own Sans Issue record label.
Digitally released in 2012 by Hospital Productions and Heartworm Press, I Keep On Searching finally sees the light on April 15, 2014 via Avant! Records and Sans Issue.
The closest comparison we could make is early Cold Cave again, but there's more here: something dead-eyed and drugged proper to this sound. Make sure to check the sludgy bass thrust and distant, dingy vox of I Keep On Searching and the bleak, tormented coldwave pop of Nectar Of Destiny.
Here are the 5 winners from our Simi Nah contest who all won a the Simi Nah album '5'.
The questions was: What is the name of the opcoming Simi Nah Album?
The correct answer is 'Be My Guest'.
Rafael Van Gestel
De Romboutweg 36
2930 Brasschaat
Yves van der straete
Koninklijke baan 344
8670 Koksijde
Roeland Eysackers
VIIde Olympiadelaan 19
2020 antwerpen
Ivan Buffel
Henri Pirennelaan
Gentbrugge Gentbrugge
Roofthooft Luc
Nijlsebaan 48,
Grobbendonck
All winners will receive an personal e-mail to print & bring.
ATTENTION!
The CD can only to be picked-up at the concert on 11.04.2014 and wil NOT be send by post!
Thanks for your understanding.
Synopsis
Based on a novel by multi-award-winning author Shuichi Yoshida (Villain, Parade), this bittersweet film is the latest offering from the director of The Woodsman & the Rain and stars Kengo Kora (Norwegian Wood, Fish Story) & Yuriko Yoshitaka (Gantz, Robo-G).
Yonosuke is a typical Japanese on-screen hero: socially awkward, childish and naive, but always cheerful and charming. We meet him when he moves from Nagasaki to Tokyo in the late eighties at the height of the city’s economic boom. Despite his odd character he manages to make new friends at university, joins a samba class and falls in love with an older woman. Sixteen years later his friends are all reminiscing over their college days, thinking back on how Yonosuke changed their lives. A heart-warming, crowd-pleasing comedy that takes a sudden dramatic turn.
About the Director
Born in 1977, Shuichi Okita studied film at the Nihon University’s College of Art. His short film, “Pots and Friends” (2002), won the Grand Prize at the Mito Short Film Festival. His first feature, “The Wonderful World”, was released in 2006. After writing and directing for TV, he directed his second feature, “The Chef of the South Polar” (2009), which enjoyed a long theatrical run in Japan and earned him acclaim overseas. His most recent work, “The Woodsman and the Rain” (2011) – a lighthearted look at the team effort behind filmmaking – was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival
CLR’s present release is a three tracks EP consisting of Terence Fixmer’s follow up of “Psychik” and two Monoloc remixes of his memorable song “Lovesick”.
The originator’s brand-new composition “Psychik (Part 2)” is a smoothly driving, thoroughly absorbing and faultlessly produced Techno track with an uplifting vibe. Terence Fixmer’s approach to Techno has always transmitted a certain warmth and sincerity, and in both of his remixes, Monoloc pays respect to this rare talent of the French DJ/producer. The Frankfurt based CLR artist combines the haunting vocals of Cormac with a soft and elegantly rolling beat, creating a mesmerizing, otherworldly atmosphere. Monoloc’s gentle and skilful production style wonderfully underlines the depth of the original.
